Elsewhere
by Le Chat Noir
Summary: The story of Maglor son of Feanor, and the Making of the Poet.
1. Elsewhere

  
  
  
  
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_Elsewhere_   
  
  
  
by Le Chat Noir   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Of the Making of the Poet   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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	2. Part I: Between Flesh and Stone

  
  
  
  


Part 1 -   
  
Between Flesh and Stone

  
  
  
  
  
_

  
Grands bois, vous m'effrayez comme des cathédrales;   
Vous hurlez comme l'orgue; et dans nos coeurs maudits,   
Chambres d'éternel deuil où vibrent de vieux râles,   
Répondent les échos de vos De profundis.   
  
Je te hais, Océan! tes bonds et tes tumultes,   
Mon esprit les retrouve en lui; ce rire amer   
De l'homme vaincu, plein de sanglots et d'insultes,   
Je l'entends dans le rire énorme de la mer.   
  
Comme tu me plairais, ô nuit! sans ces étoiles   
Dont la lumière parle un langage connu!   
Car je cherche le vide, et le noir, et le nu!   
  
Mais les ténèbres sont elles-mêmes des toiles   
Où vivent, jaillissant de mon oeil par milliers,   
Des êtres disparus aux regards familiers.

_   
  
  


-Obsession, _C. Baudelaire_

  
  
  
  
  


-

  
  
  
  
  



	3. Part I

  
  
  
  
"This is the Sea."   
  
The Father had taken the child to the shore, and held him high above the waves with outstretched arms. The child blinked at the white light reflected upon the water, tiny pecks of fire darting from the crests of waves, and his untried eyes attempted to grasp the pattern of the ever-changing surf.   
  
Troubled by the shifting sheet, he twisted slightly in his father's grasp, and the latter carefully moved to put him down.   
  
Swaying on yet uncertain legs, the toddler blinked again under the ashen light, and looked into the Ocean. Hesitantly, he walked into the water, the gentle waves lapping at his feet; the foam like pallid fingers clenching and unclenching around his slender legs. His feet sank into the sand, and soothingly, tenderly, avidly, the waves danced about his frail ankles. To the ears of the child, they sang out with the strangest voice, endless and cyclic; they sang out, to him, filling the silence with boundless meaning and yet seemingly devoid of sense. His pitch-black pupils did not reflect the seascape, and yet his eyes devoured it, taking in every particle of light and every shade of grey. The water swelled about his ankles and his calves, caressing, seductive, possessive; always searching, he felt, for a way in, for a way to pierce his skin and infiltrate his flesh, for a way to break into his body and flood his veins and make him hers.   
  
Sullenly, he bent down to pick pebbles up from the strand: small, rounded pebbles that fit well into his tiny fist; and flung them towards the infinite stretch with a childish, total will to hurt. The sea swallowed the stones, burying them in her breast, and the waves laughed, softly; and they said, "We want you; you will be ours," though the child did not understand.   
  
A stronger swell leapt up at his chest, ramming him onto the sand, and saline water gushed into his nostrils and his mouth as he gasped for breath. The thought of yelling out failed to cross his mind as he laid with his face under the water in awe, all sound blocked out of his ears by the surrounding water but the silence that he could hear; for a second being granted the sight of a uniform sky through the changing screen.   
  
Two strong hands reached to pull him from the triumphant waves.   
  
  
  
  
  


-

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	4. Part I

  
  
  
  
It all began with a single word, and that word was 'Aman'.   
  
The Blessed, Free from Evil.   
  
Paradise.   
  
The Elf child had heard the word often, and though he thought he perceived its meaning, there was something about it that he did not understand. One day when she was teaching him to paint, guiding his small hands upon the paper, forcing them back into the right path when he faltered, he asked his mother the question, because mothers know all:   
  
"Ammë, what is Aman?"   
  
And she laughed, and she told him:   
  
"Aman is where we live."   
  
Paradise, he thought. We live in Paradise.   
  
  
  
  


-

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	5. Part I

  
  
  
  
It was Russandol's room. His brother had left him seated at the edge of the great bed, as his mother's voice had rang out from the garden, calling the older child out into the light of Laurelin; and he remained alone, short legs dangling above the ground, letting his gaze wander about the white-bleached walls.   
  
It was a clean, proper room, likened to the one every child in Tirion would have; but for the fact that if you looked at them more closely, every piece of furniture was a work of art. Careful chiselling had adorned with sculptures the brass frame of the bed, an artful knife run intricate designs upon the wardrobe's doors, the window-panes; someone had found delight in gilding the backrest of the chairs, and even the half-empty inkwell on the desk had been the result of skilful craft. For the moment, light like shafts of molten gold streamed in from the open windows, bursting into the room with all the fragrances of spring in their breast; and the careless babbles of rivers and birds.   
  
He drew his knees up against his chest and hugged them close.   
  
He stared at it, thin eyebrows drawing into a slight frown. It was not very beautiful. The handle was not smooth and polished, but marked with several protubating lines, repellent in their regularity. The shape in itself lacked an elegance, and rather resembled that of a frying pan, whichever way he tilted his head to look at it; a thin, rectangular neck of elongated proportions prolonged by an obese body. Even the cords were not of the same breadth; the first threadlike, so fragile that it appeared prone to snapping whenever ones hands were to brush against it, and the last, obscene and discordant in its corpulence, too heavy, it seemed, to yield anything but an arduous groan to the coaxing fingers.   
  
But Russandol had brought forth from it simple music, the clean lullaby that mother sang to him before the goodnight kiss. The child looked at it, and felt that its fantastic form could not be fit for such a kind of music, the fanciful shape as bizarre as the song was modest. Yet he could not bring his eyes away from it, from this mysterious thing which Russandol had tamed with a caress, and knew that it was never meant as tame; in itself, its misshapen body told of the songs it was meant to sing, the terrible echoes it was meant to rouse.   
  
Russandol, having noticed his younger sibling's uncanny attraction to the object, had carelessly picked it up -he had felt no terror then for his brother- and strummed some of the strings, and told him that soon father would make one for him, too; for him to play and amuse himself with.   
  
But this was not a toy, he thought.   
  
This was a monster, a monster of grotesque beauty; a voice not meant for music that you would play, but a music that would play you.   
  
Warily, he trusted a cautious hand towards the strange work of absurd art, fingers suddenly, too soon, coming into contact with the ochre wood, and of its own accord his fist was clenched around its handle, around its neck; as spellbound, rapt, ensnared, unable to loosen his grip, he watched and felt his hand closed around the lifeless -and yet? - wood in a deadly hold, as if to strangle and to kill.   
  
The strings responded to his touch, faintly vibrating under his fingertips; and softly they sang out, to him, and they said, "Yes, we are alive."   
  
  
  
  


-

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	6. Part I

  
  
  
  
Sitting upon a window ledge, they watched the dance from high up, an endless circle caught in endless motion, large, then tight, then broken and enlarged and then reformed again, always moving, changing, strange, surprising, mocking the eyes; always unexpected, and nevertheless perfect.   
  
Russandol was just come of age some weeks ago, and wore his braid proudly, along with the new black velvet ribbon Nerdanel had bought him for the occasion.   
  
He watched the dancers, and found himself tapping the fingers of his left hand on the wall on which leant, because the right one was involved in holding a flute of champagne. Following every note of the music. There, on the harp. He had not brought his harp, for he had not expected to play it; but soon his eyelids were dropping over his pupils and both his hands moved along the flow of the music, making up as he went, never making wrong. He had not heard this song before. But it had to continue, it had to go on like this, just like this; and nothing else would have felt right. There a si, there a fa; a volee of sharps here for the most exquisite modulation; there a pause, all breaths held within the ballroom, all feet stayed, the dance frozen by this short silence; and then all over again, the circle broken this time, one end chasing another; like a serpent seeking to bite its own tail.   
  
Amused, Russandol stared at his oblivious brother out of the corner of his eye, holding both the glasses of champagne in his hand, taking slow sips from one or the other at times, because he was not really sure anymore which one had been whose.   
  
And then, an abrupt gasp issued from Maglor's throat, his eyes starting open, and his hands hung lamely in the air in front of him while far away from them the music continued playing and the ballroom twirled to its rhythm. After a long while of staring off into the distance, Maglor shut his eyes and shook his head vigorously, his yet unbound locks flying about his head.   
  
Slightly concerned by his younger brother's strange behaviour, -and yet only slightly, for Maglor's behaviour had always been somewhat peculiar to say the least- Maedhros rested a tentative hand on his shoulder.   
  
"You alright, Cano?"   
  
He slowly nodded, and an uncertain smile crossed his lips.   
  
"I'm fine. Just an erring in the music's flow." He paused for a second, passed his tongue over his lips which felt dry somehow, even though they were not. "Ridiculous as it may sound, this modulation ended half a measure too early."   
  
Russandol laughed, which made him slightly embarrassed, and then the lazy serpent at their feet came apart, breaking into couples, and each individual ring soon gained a life of its own, spinning endlessly upon itself. His eyes strayed idly across the ballroom. His father there, tall and raven-dark haired, easy to spot; his face set in an engaging smile which somehow seems to be more deadly serious then anything else. A blonde woman was hung on his arm, whom Maglor could not at first identify. Another blonde head was spotted not too far from them, but the distance quickly growing between both couples as they revolved and turned: it was the little Tyelkormo, twenty-eight of age, twirling in his mother's arms; his face a mask of pure delight as he clung to her dress. The sound of their laughter, of both mother and son, could be heard all across the hall; above the music to Maglor's ears, fairer than it at the moment, for the music displeased him.   
  
He watched them for a while. Nerdanel's dress was a rich emerald green, embroidered with gold; and on her neck Feanor's newest creation. Her long, flaringly red hair was unbound, neatly pinned down by golden slides of his father's fashion; but as was its habit had begun to wear itself loose. Her youngest son wore clothes of a similar shade, of a simple, yet elegant and highly refined fashion, but his were lined in silver and not gold.   
  
And then the dance stopped, the last note of the music hanging in the air, a sharp, shrill sound like that of a miniature silver bell, like that of a faint, distant scream of terror or pleasure; and then broken by the loud chattering that rolls and swells like a storm from the formerly silent crowd, the pattern of the dance dissolved by people walking from the dance floor in every direction. He extended a hand towards Russandol, who handed him back his flute, and only when he brought it to his lips did he realize that it had been emptied; and rolled his eyes at his madly grinning brother as he was moved himself to smiling by the other's expression.   
  
His eyes strayed once more to the ball room as his fingers toyed with the exquisitely made glass of champagne. There was his father again. Courteous as always, but a little more rigid than usual maybe.   
  
He nearly fell from the window ledge as he suddenly caught a better look of the blonde lady on his arm, however, and had to lash down with his luckily fast reflexes to keep the ornamented flute from crashing into the marble floor. For she was Indis, wife of Finwe, Queen of the Noldor; and a desperate smile was in her eyes.   
  
  
  
  


-

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	7. Part I

  
  
  
  
With a small cry of dismay, he quickly moved the rose from one hand to another, being more careful this time; and watched the small pearl of crimson liquid that had began to form on his finger where the thorn had pricked.   
  
It was a beautiful flower, and he did not even think before bending down to take it from its bush. The soft white petals had a faint pink nacre tint to their base, and each was the shape of paper-cut heart. Its own heart was golden; a rich, handsome shade of gold which would have been unwelcome in such a delicate flower had it not been almost entirely hidden by the petals: thin, fragile, transparent. His eye had immediately been caught by it, among all the other roses of his father's garden; even though he had never given much heed to the physical beauty of things. It smiled to him, it alone; and it was not even a question whether he should or not cut it at the stem, take away from it its life, only to hold it between his index and his thumb and have it moved closer to his nostrils, not he moved closer to it.   
  
He was bleeding, he realized. It wasn't flowing, or dripping, or even changing anymore. At a certain point, when the drop of blood had really become as a pearl, small, round, perfect, it did not continue to grow. He wondered if it was because the wound was small, and the blood scarce spilt; he realized that he should wipe it off from his finger somewhere, but he could not bring himself to part from it. My blood, it cried out to every part of his body. My blood.   
  
After a while, he brought it to his lips, and licked it clean off the skin. It tasted sour, like iron and rust.   
  
The flower's deep scent enveloped him as he brought it closer to his nostrils. It had something of the freshness of spring, something of the fullness of summer, and the rich explosion of autumnal colours, and his lips formed into a smile even as he breathed in deeply, drowning himself into the unworldly fragrance, almost chocking upon the nearly _material_ presence of the perfume. A strange doubt sought to pull his mind from the complete olfactious communion. The flowers' silky petals tickled his nose and lips. Its scent filled his nostrils, his whole body, running through his limbs along with the blood rushing in his veins; it was not scent alone, but converted to colours behind his dropped eyelids and gentle touches upon his skin and music in his ears. Something tried to pull him away from it. It was as if he had trusted his face into a pillow, and he could neither see not breathe not hear, the utter submersive submission slowly gaining a deadly grip on his all senses, and there was this nagging thought as the far end of his brain, pulling him back, anchoring him to the world, to reality, something that told him that this was not what he sought, not beautiful enough, not perfect enough, not _complete_ enough for death.   
  
He gasped, and released in a sudden sigh the breath he had held, his eyes starting open as the world abruptly washed over him like a wave, nearly knocking him off his feet.   
  
The crimson pearl on his finger had reshaped itself, from new blood; and again stayed there, unchanging, innocent, upon his fingertip.   
  
Tentatively, he approached the rose to his nose again, careful to keep a firm grasp on his mind. It spoke again to him, of a dream, of an ideal, of a revelation; and yet this time he found it easy -easier- to dismiss it as a delusion. There was something it lacked, something that indeed he had seldom encountered in the seemingly eternal spring of Valinor; but something of bliss and of grief he had not found in the flower's wholesome lures: and this was maybe the sharp, crisp feeling of the snow crushed under your foot, the burn of the snow in your hand, its thousand daggers in your eyes.   
  
Something was tickling his arm. Startled, his hand let go of the flower, letting it flutter to the ground; but it was only a small white spider crawling on his skin. Reassured, he stared at it for a while, until it arrived at his shoulder where he could not see it anymore, and brushed it off with a careless gesture. It must have come from the flower, he thought. Strange.   
  
He looked down to the ground, and did not see the rose. Slightly perplexed, he looked around, stepping forwards slightly, in case an ill-timed breath of wind had swept it off. But he did not see it.   
  
It was only when he turned around that he realized that in his surprise at the spider's sudden intrusion, he had inadvertently crushed the flower under his boot.   
  
  
  
  


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End Part 1

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	8. Part II: The Ignes Fatui

  
  
  
  


Part 2 -   
  
The Ignes Fatui

  
  
  
  
  
_

  
Pourtant, sous la tutelle invisible d'un Ange,   
L'Enfant déshérité s'enivre de soleil,   
Et dans tout ce qu'il boit et dans tout ce qu'il mange   
Retrouve l'ambroisie et le nectar vermeil.   
  
  
Il joue avec le vent, cause avec le nuage,   
Et s'enivre en chantant du chemin de la croix;   
Et l'Esprit qui le suit dans son pèlerinage   
Pleure de le voir gai comme un oiseau des bois.

_   
  
  


-Bénédiction, _C. Baudelaire_

  
  
  
  
  


-

  
  
  
  
  



	9. Part II

  
  
  
  
The door was pushed open suddenly, coming into abrupt contact with the wall, and he turned his head to look at the intruder by pure instinct.   
  
"Ah, do not move so, Cano!" A scolding voice came from behind him as a sharp pain stung his scalp, making him wince. "Your hair is already difficult enough to do, wavy as it is."   
  
To give fair measure of things, Russandol gave his brother's silken locks another sharp yank, gentler this time however, and Maglor stayed still.   
  
The door was closed again as if no one had ever opened it.   
  
"Who was it?" he asked, making the conscious effort to not turn his head around to glance at his brother; instead staring straight into the mirror in front of him, looking at Russandol's reflection frowning at the back of his mirrored head.   
  
"Just Tyelkormo." The other's voice was slightly muffled for the numerous hair pins he kept held between his lips, waiting to be stuck in Maglor's new complicated hairdo.   
  
"Oh."   
  
"Don't move."   
  
He stiffened, bracing himself for the stinging pain that was sure to befall after such a warning, but after a while, relaxed; as nothing seemed to have happened.   
  
A slight frown of concentration was set upon Russandol' brow as his hands worked deftly to intertwine strands of his brother's black hair with intricately designed golden hairpins. Maglor did not dare even twitch , as his older brother had already had to begin his efforts all over again twice as his long fingers got entangled in his sibling's supple locks; and resorted to staring straight in front of him into the mirror's smooth surface. It was another world, an image of this one: finite unlike it, as the carefully chiselled frame held the precious image there, two brothers, Russandol's fingers in his hair and hair slides between his lips, him sitting in a chair as straight as his back would permit, two fine young men like a tableau of family life and love that he could have fooled himself into believing was true. Low grumbling came from a voice that seemed to hover someplace above his head as Russandol's eyebrows came knotted together for a moment and Maglor almost blinked at the sharp and painful contact of cold metal with his scalp. Noticing the sudden tension in his brother's shoulders, the russet elf in the mirror softened his expression, and issued a short apology, as Russandol's hands grew gentler with the other's locks.   
  
It had been a surprisingly agreeable experience to have another run a brush through his hair, and it brought back to him old memories that he would never have thought of again had the odd sensation not passed once more through his body. As a child, sitting in his mother's lap, as she ran her strong fingers through his hair, the fingers of an artisan, rubbing his scalp like an artful massage; mother and son, sitting in silence, strange stories told nights after night as he did not wonder why his father did not come home; her child cradled on her knees, arms tightened around his small body, things whispered in his ears that he could not understand. Odd dreams, remembering things that he has never seen; waking in the morning in her bed with the curtains drawn and the light of Laurelin flooding through them in eerie shafts, hurting his eyes.   
  
He blinked at his own eyes in the mirror, black like some of the gems his father worked, that he treasured above all; inverted alabaster, he called it as he held it between his thumb and fingers, tiny facets of light reflecting off its polished surface. Most beautiful in the time of the waning of Telperion, when Laurelin herself had not yet awakened, he would then explain, with a crooked smile as he bent down and enjoined them with a simple gesture of his other hand to lean their heads closer to his, the stone a gleaming centre to the curious circle they formed; his voice a whisper so low that it sounded like the wind that bore queer tales in its breast. Most beautiful, most beautiful still in its rough form, unpolished by avid hands or by the constant caress of the river; and to prove his point, he had led them into his forge, swung his great hammer down upon the rock and broke it in halves, and uncovered in the heart of the stone wonders of crystals, tiny shards of jewels that stuck together as in an effort to reach up higher than the last, growing wild in every direction like an untamed underbrush.   
  
An odd gleam in his eyes, changing like a pale fire; they were the ones who needed darkness to grow, he told, fascinated himself by the unworldly colours as if he had not expected to find them sprouting in the heart of the stone, darkness, and time, solitude and silence, and reclusion from the world.   
  
The world stared back at him, Russandol towering above him with now only two pins left in his mouth and a victorious expression set on his refined features, the room inverted beyond the glass; his own face, pale, flushed, eaten by the presence of his eyes and the surrounding halo of sable hair.   
  
"Here. You're all set." On the other side of the glass surface, Russandol leant down to rest his chin on the other's shoulder. "My baby brother all grown up. My aren't we quite the pretty boy now." Both young elves looked straight in front of them into the mirror, two pair of pitch-black eyes like gaping crevices with no end looking back into their own; and the older one suddenly deposited a quick peck on Maglor's cheek, surprising the latter so that he yelped and lashed out with his hand to push him back; but before he came to be actually hit the red-haired son of Feanor had smiled and sighed, passing a hand through his own yet casually braided hair and taken a step back to contemplate his work.   
  
"I would not be surprised if all the maidens of Tirion were soon to start pursuing your favours, little Cano."   
  
Maglor sniffed disdainfully. "That sounds hardly likely. Last time I checked you kept quite the monopole…"   
  
"Aww, jealous, how cute." Russandol snickered. "I would have ruffled your hair would it not have quite defeated the entire purpose of my having just spent the last three hours toiling here in your room like a servant."   
  
He took up a smaller mirror and placed it behind his brother's head, slightly to the right so that it would not come to be completely hidden, and Maglor drew in his breath as suddenly the world was multiplied, amplified, dilated; one no more, two no more, twins staring endlessly at each other through the thin layer of sacred glass, but infinite, boundless, untold, and innumerous.   
  
  
  
  


-

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	10. Part II

  
  
  
  
The fingers of his left hand idly toyed with the lock of the cage's door.   
  
Fingolfin had offered him the bird in the golden cage for his fiftieth begetting day, and he had not been startled by the beautiful design of the cage or by the wren's elegant plumage, but by the smile on his uncle's face. It had been a genuine smile, one that wanted to love and be loved; and the intricate bars of the cage between them some sign of implicit reconciliation. His uncle had shown him all the nuances of the little bird's soft feathers, and Maglor had stared into its small beady black eyes; he had told him of its sweet singing voice, and Maglor had wondered at the daedal cage; and he had told him to tame it, with songs akin to its own, so that it would sit on his shoulder every day without flying away into the woods, and Maglor had studied his wontedly stern expression, now replaced by the warmest smile.   
  
It could not be said that Fingolfin's elegant complexion was not beautiful. Set in its usual mask of indifference, it had the exquisite handsomeness of an ancient statue, one whose face was set in stone for ages unmemorable; noble features defined in hard and imperishable marble. His eyes, distant in their aloofness yet all the more sharp and present when they were set upon your own in disapproval, seeking as if to cut through the fabric of your fea and uncover the very core of your thoughts, showed the shades of iron and steel of Finwe's; appropriate for both their indifference, likened to the clouds of storm, and their keenness which was that one of a honed knife.   
  
Fingolfin rarely smiled, and maybe it was the first time that Maglor had seen such an expression on his features, when he thought about it; and it was as if Finwe's second son was unsure of the way to curl his mouth, the spark in his eyes hesitant to twinkle properly. But he extended his arms to take the cage and the bird with due gratitude and thanks, and felt the cold metal against his palms except for where his uncle's hands had touched it. As he had turned away after exchanging words of politeness with Fingolfin's family, however, he felt the gaze of his father bearing into the back of his skull, and turning around, he saw Feanor's eyes, strange, inquiring, shifting from his son's face to the wren in the golden cage; and his hands had instinctively tightened around the bars of gold.   
  
It was, in part, the reason why he was now standing in this clearing, not far from the edge of the wood; and the small bird in the cage tilted its head looking in turns at his newfound owner and the green foliage around them, its minute blue wings moving queerly as if in an eccentric dance. He raised the cage at eye-level, and stared intently at the beady round eyes of an opaque darkness, and the bird seemed to laugh, to mock him; as if he, no it, were the one held within a prison of gold. His brow drew itself into a frown. The bird had refused to sing for him, and he had once, tentatively tried to coax a few notes out of it by a simple song of his own, but though it had not ignored his song, a clever eye fixed into his own, no response had been given but that air of derision and jest that seemed so obvious in its looks.   
  
Should he commit the sin of taming it? Beautiful songs would it sing for him everyday, and perched upon his shoulder it would sit, waiting for his hand to feed it some grain or crumb; he could caress its soft feathers without fear of sensing alarm in its slight body and wake in the morning to the sweet tones of its voice. But he remembered his father's eyes boring into his own, the questioning look that he could recognise, if none other: slightly surprised, slightly hurt, slightly disappointed.   
  
Eyes suddenly narrowed, he harshly pulled the lock of the golden cage open, and swung it skywards at arm's end in one swift gesture; in a frenzy of flapping wings that seemed to suddenly fill the world the small wren was gone, a black dot in the pale blue sky that moved out of his sight to be merged into the dark foliage of trees.   
  
Not a thought crossed his mind, not a feeling, and certainly not regret.   
  
"This is my playground. What makes you think you have the right to tread within it?"   
  
The presence of the child seemed only right. He tore his eyes from the spot in the uniform sky where the bird had disappeared, and turned his head to the side without moving the rest of his body.   
  
The small boy was dark haired, and blue eyed, maybe a trait of some Vanyarin ancestors; and he wore simple clothes of green that allowed him to make his way through the forest unspied, seeing without being seen. Legs dangling in the void on either side of a slender branch that looked like it might break under his weight, the boy was apparently oblivious to that fact, and Maglor knew that he would not fall: it was not in the right order of things. His small face wore a defiant expression, that one of a child, omnipotent and invicible; and Maglor was almost drawn to smile.   
  
"I came to give freedom to a bird."   
  
The boy sniffed in a disdainful manner. "It was a beautiful bird. Why did you not keep it?" He leant forwards in accusation. "Do you not like birds?"   
  
Maglor was startled into replying impulsively. "I like birds!" A fraction of a second later he cursed himself under his breath for this irrational reply. "Their song is dear to my heart," he continued, more thoughtfully, with all due seriousness; "but they cannot sing well when they are held captive, you see."   
  
The child scoffed and raised an eyebrow at him. "But I have many birds in my house in cages and they sing just as well as those in the wild, if not even better, for my mother has taught them her art. I feed them everyday, and sometimes they come and perch themselves on my finger because they love me." He paused for a moment, as if perplexed. "Your bird did not love you because it flew away."   
  
He refused to think. "It loved freedom better." The phrase clung to his mind, an idea that he pushed away with all the willpower he had left, and he barred his mind to all further dwelling upon that subject.   
  
His father's inquiring gaze was there instead, posing that unvoiced question, burdening him in one split of a moment for the rest of eternity with the knowledge of ignorance.   
  
He hardened his heart and bit his tongue. "Who are you then, little friend of birds who keeps them in cage? Will you tell me your name?"   
  
The child sat up straight, proudly, and annonced "My name is Laurendil, and my father serves the Lord Finarfin."   
  
The green of his clothing suddenly took on an entirely different meaning.   
  
From his high position in the tree, the boy looked down at Maglor with an air half-amused, half-scornful, and set his lips in a slight pout as he spoke again. "And you are a son of Feanor. You have black eyes like him and his brood."   
  
And he disappeared into the foliage with a slight rustle of leaves.   
  
His last shout reached Maglor's ears only when the latter had begun to work himself out of his stupor. "I am Laurendil and this is my secret playground! I will have you thrown out of it were you to come again."   
  
He went and threw the artful cage into some nearby stream and did not stay to watch it float away.   
  
  
  
  


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	11. Part II

  
  
  
  
The next day at breakfast, though Maglor had told nothing of the matter and as if in jest, Feanor asked him whether he had fashioned any new song that he would share for their pleasure: a thing that he had seldom done before; and he called him _filit. _   
  
  
  
  


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	12. Part II

  
  
  
  
Both his father's long, powerful hands were closed upon his own, which themselves were clenched around the cool polished stone; and its light still shone through their bones and their flesh. Their hands glowed red. When he was a child, the first time he had held one of his father's cold stars in his hand, he had yelped in surprise at seeing the cold blue light filtering through his crimson hands, and Feanor had laughed, telling him that it was only because of the blood that flowed in his veins, under his flesh. But the child had wondered greatly, and kept the gem in his palm for a long time, opening and closing his fist around it so that the light was in turn snow-like white and blazing red.   
  
Feanor's hands were cold. His father's hands had always been warm, hot sometimes, burning with a strange fever when working that was not due to the fire of the forges; at times handling red-hot metals without the protective layers of a glove, their heat matching its. But now his great hands closed upon his son's were cold, as if those of a corpse: though for their crimson shade it could be told that the blood of life flowed through them still. Maglor stared at the red rays of light piercing both their flesh and bones, like knives or arrows, yet he felt no physical pain at the impalement. When the light of Laurelin or Telperion fell upon a wall, shadows could be made upon this wall by a raised hand, shadows upon the ground the fanciful shapes of bodies and buildings, created by an abscence of light due to the barrier of flesh and bones. Even thin layers of cloth could stop their gentle rays of silver and gold But if the Silmarils' light was soft and white, it pierced through all four of their hands without being diminished. It was as if it was not his flesh anymore which was more solid than the etheral beams, but the rays of pale light which were more tangible, more present, more real.   
  
And the jewels seemed to shine even brighter than before, his father's hands blazing a cruder, harsher shade of red; and he knew that his own underneath them did too.   
  
That day, he dreamt of music.   
  
He did not want the music, but the music wanted him, and he could not run and there were no chains to break. He could not stop singing, could not stop playing, torrents of notes and words rushing through his mind during Laurelin and Telperion, tumbling upon him and oppressing his chest if he did not yield them a voice. Darkness all around.   
  
He had had dreams of music before, but never had they been so intense, so strong, so fierce and furious as if it sought to engulf him in its sheer power.   
  
The Silmarils shone in the darkness, three beacons that called out to him with their changing light, their strange shifting radiance that came alive with his own thoughts, with his own music; and he followed as they beckoned to him, reflections of his needs and wants that led him blindly through the endless moors.   
  
  
  
  


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	13. Part II

  
  
  
  
Someone had held him on their knees.   
  
He had been a child, a small child of few summers; but he could not remember the time. Light shone through the drawn curtains of the room, flooding it with blinding radiance, reflected off the bleached walls like the echo of a sound; and he often had to blink though he could not see very clearly. Someone was sitting on a bed and held him in their lap, both arms, strong, gentle arms around his waist, he leaning back into their embrace and staring at the odd shapes the light curtains took when moved by a breath of wind; and someone whispered words into his ear that he did not recall. He was not listening to what they said, and it was someone with the voice of his father, but he could not see their face, and he could not remember.   
  
He had been told again the story of the Lady who went to sleep, in a beautiful garden surrounded by willow-trees, and did not wake up again. He had been told again of her silver tresses, and her snow-white skin, and the leaves that fell upon her body like the tears of trees, rain from the mourning heavens and soft petals carried by the wind: a statue caught in endless sleep upon her pedestal of stone, a marble semblance of life.   
  
"Is she happier where she is?"   
  
It was the question he had been asked, a child, half-listening and hand toying with long locks of sable hair. If it could not make her happy, why would she have gone? The blinding light created an interesting effect on the raven-black hair, it gleaming so that strands of it appeared white. The arms around his waist slightly tightened their hold, and he was vaguely aware that something was expected of him, and it made him feel uneasy; he could remember having been taken to that beautiful garden and trailed a tentative finger down the lady's cheek, smoother than anything he had ever touched and likened to the surface of a polished gem. Colour had been retained in her face, her cheeks slightly pink, and her bloodshot lips parted so that she appeared to be gasping for breath, and he had pretended that she was a lady statue, made perfect, maybe by his father or mother because they were the only ones who could make things so perfect, a statue made so lifelike that she had a soul and a heart; that her parted lips were gasping for breath, burning with unquenched thirst, ever begging for the gift of life.   
  
Sulky and restless, he had squirmed out of the embrace, and began running towards the door. And he had said, "She chose a beautiful garden to sleep in."   
  
  
  
  


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	14. Part II

  
  
  
  
He sat upon the stairs ascending to the threshold of the House of Fire, taking slow sips from a glass of some unidentified beverage Nerdanel had earlier brought him; and watched his youngest brother play.   
  
The dark-haired child was waving a stick about, walking back and forth across the garden, as if one in a cage who was devising a way for escape. He had been doing this for quite a while now. The lack of diversity in his movements bored Maglor slightly. But he had been expressedly enjoined to keep watch over the boy, as his mother had fast become aware of her most recent son's restlessness and capacity for unexpected and creative mischief under his calm, serious little face.   
  
The sour drink had acquired a strange, sligthly nauseating taste from being exposed to the warm rays of Laurelin, and he grimaced as he set it down upon the stone, still half-filled with a pinkish tainted liquid.   
  
Presently, the boy had engaged in the activity of standing under the shelter of some trees, and used his stick in a manner that distinctively reminded Maglor of fending off an invisible adversary's blows.   
  
Perplexed, he called out. "Hey, Curvo! What are you doing?"   
  
Startled, the child looked up, and immediately halted his play, his body and face regaining the usual serious blankness, slight boredom they wore.   
  
He did not answer at first, only looked to the stick in his hand as if he had been until then unaware of holding it.   
  
"Nothing," he finally said, and shrugged as he walked back into the house.   
  
  
  
  


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	15. Part II

  
  
  
  
He sat on the log, back resting against that of his eldest brother, and his hands strayed lazily upon the strings of a lute, his spirit far from the vagrant notes he coaxed from the cords.   
  
He couldn't quite make out the notes of his music from the incessant singing of the birds, themselves not fully distinguishable against the clear babble that sprung from the shallow streams. The music rushed in his head, pouring from his heart in an avalanche of notes, but he had got used to its constant roar behind his ears; and when he tried to listen to the notes sprung from the strings they were lost among the sounds of the surrounding landscape. This was what made Aman what she was, maybe: different from the forsaken lands that were told of in hushed whispers, from the Cuivienen that some remembered in dreams; that she was always filled with sounds and noises that one could choose to hear, yet kept the world at all times one step away from silence.   
  
Aman.   
  
The name lingered in his mind, fought its way into his music, found itself on the tip of his tongue. A strange association of two syllables, not so much syllables as two letters connected by the same Tehtar, the very repetition of which annihilated all effect it could have had: Malta and Numen, the golden West. Blessed, Free from Evil. And it was true that when one looked about at the encircling scenery...   
  
"Aman." The sequence of sounds found its way through his lips, barely a whisper, and it meant nothing.   
  
Russandol's elbow dug into his back in a rhythmic manner, and he was not very sure what his brother was doing exactly; but the warmth of the other's back was far too comfortable for him to move or tell him to stop. In fact, it was the only thing that kept him from moving: both their braids hanging down their backs had begun to hurt him quite a while ago, and the bark of the dead wood felt rough and coarse through the fine layers of his leggings. Also, a strange kind of torpor had invaded his mind, and it felt like only shifting his position would be an effort far too demanding to be worth the try. Maybe he needed to sleep. But it was not weariness there, slowly infiltrating his body: bearing into his heart like the perpetual dripping of water on the surface of a rock, or rather a sponge that became heavier and heavier as its breast was filled with the cold liquid. The music seemed to be very far away, confusing and slurred like the distant roaring of an unseen waterfall, his hands upon the lute moved only by the mechanism of his brain commanding his fingers to pluck the cords. The bright colours of the clearing became merged together in a strange shifting tapestry, the green blades of grass an uniform carpet, shreads of white clouds tears in the sky's pastel fabric, each blooming flower a fluttering butterfly...   
  
Just as he was about to settle his mind on the concept of standing up and shaking the torpor from his limbs, Russandol stood up, in the same movement depriving him of his backrest, and he nearly fell.   
  
"Here, Cano, what do you think?" Maedhros asked, oblivious to his frustrated glare.   
  
The elder youth ran a nervous hand through his unbound hair while Maglor looked critically at the piece of carved wood he had been handed. An eagle, wings outspread. Not very expert craftsmanship, as Russandol had never been the most skilled of hand out of Feanor's sons, and quite a common and cliched image of the emblem of Finwe's House; but somehow to the eye which knew to look, it had, maybe not the majesty inherent to the symbol, but an incredible tenderness and love meshed within the lines where the hard chisel had passed, an almost shy gentleness that had always clashed with the bold messages expresed, a thing scarce seen, which marked the piece of art as a product of Russandol's hands.   
  
He smiled, and looked up to his brother.   
  
"I am no judge in the matter, Russandol... but it looks good."   
  
"Does it really?"   
  
A worried face appeared beside his as the other peered over his shoulder.   
  
It did.   
  
"Yes. Of course."   
  
Without ceremony, the red-haired elf almost snatched his statuette back from his brother's hands. He stared at it for a few moments, turning it around, seeming to examine all its facets as if they were not yet familiar to him who had shaped them; and finally sighed, chucking it into the nearby grass over his shoulder in a desinvolte gesture.   
  
"Just a random draft."   
  
A silence passed during which neither of them moved.   
  
"Findekano's birthday coming up?"   
  
Startled, Russandol parted his lips to answer, but seemed to find no suitable word to express himself, as he instead flashed his younger brother a strange look; after which his eyes immediately regained their normal mild cheerfullness.   
  
He looked away into the distance, breathing in deeply; and the silver rays of Telperion slowly became mingled with the radiance of Laurelin.   
  
"Let's go," he said, beginning to walk towards the path in the woods with his usual comfortable stride. "Mother will be worried."   
  
And Maglor stood to follow, hastily brushing off remnants of dead bark that clung to his garments.   
  
Mother was never worried.   
  
He ran to catch up with his brother's retreating frame.   
  
  
  
  


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	16. Part II

  
  
  
  
The two children somehow managed to grow, full of curiosity and full of life.   
  
They came late, Ambarussa. All their brothers were full grown adults, and Moryo bethrothed; the two babies, each resting in the craddle of one of their father's arms, came into the world in the middle of Telperion. [1] Feanor nearly went mad with glee that day, and lavished more attention upon the two identical miniature redheads than he ever had for any living thing; never seeming, however, able to make the difference between the two.   
  
And after a month, his mind wandered again.   
  
The library was dark, a special room created by Feanor to escape the perpetual radiance of the Trees: heavy curtains of dark velvet hanging down from the windows that blocked all light seeking entrance to the room. Each wall disappeared behind shelves of dark wood, filled with leather-bound volumes that smelt of dampness and of dust. Comfortable armchairs stood here and there, seemingly placed at random, yet so perfectly disposed, Maglor thought, that if one of them were moved but for an inch in any direction, the whole structure of the room would fall apart and its warm harmony destroyed.   
  
A great fire roared in the hearth, throwing humoungous shadows that seemed to move. One of the twins sat at a table, studiously bent upon a sheet of paper, in Russandol's lap; three cushions had been added because the child's nose would have been level with the table's surface. Their fiery hair shone in the fire's changing light, gleaming like metal, and Russandol regularly moved his left hand up to push the child's soft unbound locks away from his face as he peered over his shoulder. His right hand held his brother's smaller one, guiding him upon the paper in slow, smooth gestures: teaching him to form his letters so that they would seem pleasing to the beholder's eye.   
  
The other Russo sat upon the soft, thick carpet of the room, and played with nothing as only young children could do.   
  
After a while, Maglor turned back to watching the two others at the table.   
  
There was something amiss in the little boy's movements, he found, doubting his eyes for a few minutes at first, maybe far more free-flowing and wide than handwriting would allow, and in Russandol's gaze: strangely bright and more focused than usual, staring at the paper as if the song of Iluvatar had just been revealed to him in black ink.   
  
Curious, he moved closer to them, and peered over Russandol shoulder; only to have his breath nearly knocked out of him by what he saw.   
  
On the paper, lines of letters at the beginning, irregular as if trembling and unperfect; and then suddenly, one of their stems elongated, continuing all over the sheet as free-flowing lines, enmeshed together in an inextricable and perfectly balanced knot; Russandol captivated by the image as the boy's hand now obviously directed his own, fixing upon the yellowed parchment in black ink a great big picture of nothingness.   
  
  
  
  


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	17. Part II

  
  
  
  
And when it happened, there was no fight, no shouting; only silence, as always, maybe a little more than always. Maybe a little more strained, maybe a little more forced. Everything that was left unsaid heard just as clearly heard when hanging in the air, words given no voice, questions no answer, memories and words of regret with no echo in another's heart; regret, love, sorrow smouldering behind peaceful masks, and the total absence of hatred that hurt more than all else.   
  
Birds kept on chirping in the gardens, and their monotonuous song drifted in from the open windows. The music would not leave him alone. Every muscle of his body tense to appear relaxed, he fought with the song that threathened to take over his mind, pushing it away, fingernails digging into the flesh of his palms.   
  
The sudden explosion of noise did not startle any of them, as if they all knew that it would happen there and then; and Tyelkormo muttered an undefined sequence of syllables that all preferred to assume an apology before bending down and sweeping up the remnants of his shattered plate.   
  
It did not surprise them. Even in the days when all had been glad, they had been resigned. All fooled themselves into believing in what they saw, and heard; blinding and deafening themselves to what they knew would always be true. So none talked and none wept. Everything that was meant to be said long said, every tear meant to be shed long shed: and no more should ever come.   
  
And Nerdanel took them into her lap and asked them whom they would like to stay with, in a strangled whisper, because she knew the answer: the two red-headed children so like to her, with her hair and her nose, and her mouth, even the discreet freckles of her skin; only the great dark intense eyes of their father's. Such serious little faces when she kissed their foreheads, not a tear, not a smile, not a gesture of their arms to cling to the cotton fabric of her dress: limp, like two identical ragdolls shaped by the hand of the same maker, obedient in her embrace under her kisses and as unresponsive as the statues of her creation.   
  
Maglor went into their room that Telperion, when all else was silent, but he knew that none slept; and he held them close, as though he would loose them forever. They did not sleep either, and this time they clung to him, in the protective darkness of their room, away from all eyes and all importance of their acts, huddling themselves close against him as he held them because it was a moment that would never matter, children, frightened children lost in the knowledge they did not understand: and he wept over them because they could not weep, he wept, in anger and in frustration, because they had always tried to keep it from them, their youngest brothers: but in the end, they knew, they had always known.   
  
  
  
  


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	18. Part II

  
  
  
  
Russandol first set his foot across the threshold of Formenos, looking up to the overbearingly high ceiling, letting out a soft whistle at the sheer size of the Great Hall flooded with the silver light of Telperion streaming past the windows of tainted glass; and remarked with more than an edge of admiration in his voice that, if a prison, this was a damned fancy prison if his opinion was ever asked.   
  
When Maglor was done with unpacking his things and arranging his room, occasionally giving his brothers a hand -especially Curvo, for he had to hold and sing soft songs to the little Tyelpe in his arms, who was wailing as if the end of days had come-; he ran all the way up to the highest floor of the fortress, into the attic. And as he dashed along the dark corridors caught between groaning walls of steel, the echoes of his hurried steps following him, devancing him, showing him the way; the little Cano, a child of few summers, scurried through the corridors of the House of Fire, brightly lit, and played with the rays of Laurelin streaming in from the tall windows in square pillars of light: made visible, palpable, present by the dust hovering in the air, unquieted by a child's game. He had stopped to pull them open, one by one, and climbed up to sit upon the ledge; there was no one to cry out in alarm as such a young child being perched upon a window's banister, legs dangling in the void four floors above the ground. They were wooden ledges, quite roughened by the beating rain -or light- as no one ever came by those parts of the House to notice it, and the dark paint on the wood was slowly beginning to peel off; and while he felt the gentle warmth of radiant Laurelin pouring onto his face, parting his lips and tilting his head back to receive the beams of light in his mouth, he often found the fingers of one of his hands idly stripping the banisters of their colour, shreds of greyish black skin floating down from his place to the young grass beneath. Golden rays caressed his face, burnt his black hair to searing hotness; yet often, as it wasn't enough, the child had stripped of his tunic to expose the bare skin of his chest to the embrace of the light, drinking it, breathing it, and though he was often moved to song by the suffocating tenderness of the golden air he never dared to sing, not one note, not one.   
  
There were no windows along the darkest corridors of Formenos, and air heavy with a humid cold rushed past him while he ran, as fast as his feet could carry him across the frozen ground like ice. The walls closed in, and Russandol's words came back to him: a prison with a palace's walls. But here in the most forlorn part of the fortress no useless decoration adorned the bare walls, and a prison it was like in form; though as Maglor ran, faster and faster, almost stumbling once or twice over his own feet, kicking his ankles in his precipitation, the steel gave way under his steps and the slight stream of air raised by his moving form, and suddenly the damp feeling of the moist, enclosed atmosphere on his skin became cool and fresh, a healing chill for the feverish beating of his veins against his brow, the wild swarm of ideas in his heart. The uniform grey of the walls gave pause to the rush of maddening colours beneath his eyes, soothing and calm, and he almost found his step slowing down as the intriguing feeling caught him by surprise, pouring down upon him like a sudden shower of iced waters; but he caught himself and began running again, this time faced with a flight of stairs.   
  
Upwards.   
  
To the sky.   
  
He felt the fire in his blood subdued, and the strange presence of the Silmarils floors below, shining with their soft and oozing radiance through all the steel, all the stone, embracing him from below and pushing him forwards; as if the knowledge of their strength supported his weight and lightened the step of his booted feet upon the ground.   
  
The stairs did not seem to have an end. It was one after the other, and then some more; as he looked up, he could not see a light to tell him of the way left for him to cover. So he gave up on trying. Formenos, if a fortress seen from the outside with walls of steel, where confinement reigned, once he had stepped inside had now become boundless, incredible freedom coming from being held within her walls: here, where no elegant carvings adorned the dark stone, where no high windows showed in the light from beyond, here, away from the ensnaring beauty of Tirion, she became the likeness of the liberating prison, the one that unfettered from the weight of wings; and when at last he burst out from the stairs into the low-ceilinged attic, catching his breath at the sudden stop that nearly sent him rolling on the ground, he blinked for a second at the silence and stillness clutching the long room in their grasp, marvelling at the quiet that held sway.   
  
White, blemish light tentatively snuck in from the skylight.   
  
Hastily, as his eyes scanned the room, he moved to grab the backrest of a nearby chair -the straw prickled his palm, making it itch slightly- and dragged it to stand directly under the window on the roof, yet the chair wasn't enough; he rashly discarded it and it fell down to the side with a great clanging noise, but he was not paying attention as his eyes darted across the room again, this time caught by a table at the other end: without stopping to think, he suddenly found himself engaging all his strength into pushing it into the vertical shaft of light that came from the already soiled glass of the small window. The legs of the table creaked and shrieked out of friction with the polished floor, but he could not hear their screeching over the raucous beating of his own heart: and at last he leapt and stood upon its surface, fumbled for a moment with the lock of the skylight, and was eventually able to pass his head and his shoulders out into the open.   
  
A cold rush of wind whipped at his face.   
  
He squirmed to pass his arms out of the skylight, hurting himself a slight bit on the right shoulder; and tried to tuck two strands of stray hair behind his ear, but the harsh wind kept blowing them into his eyes. The boundless, grey moor seemed to stretch endlessly over the world, reaching out towards the dreary horizon: and the sudden gust of exhilaration that sprang in his heart enclosed its whole extent, and he wanted to embrace its entirety with the span of his arms, to run down, this instant, to run again amidst the tall grass that grew up to the waist and fall and bury himself among them, feeling their dry length snap under his, bristle the back of his neck and his whole body through the heavy layers of cloth he wore. The sky above him was clouded, shades of grey dashed with shreds of white; the patches of dull colours swirling with the stark breath of northern wind. He breathed in deeply, and found no scent held within the airstream's breast. A wide smile broke out on his lips. No bird chirped in the distance, though he strained his ear to catch a note; but the moan of the wind met his ear. The silence around him, wide, open, inviting, empty: pulling him into the void that was it and claiming him as its own, roaring in his ears, and he felt that his heart would burst from the joy and lightness of the startling release; all chains severed that bound him to the ground.   
  
And he did not sing, yet hollered into the moody day, yelled and shouted and leant out of the window so that a stronger rush of wind would have tipped his balance and send him falling to his death; feeling free as he had never before. There was no echo of his voice from the infinite plain, as if the landscape had eaten his cries, absorbed them into her body, and the tall wheat swayed under the rough caress of the wind like a strange dance that changed the paysage, numberless variations of the dirty greenish grey that looked like waves on a restless sea: the soft rustling sound of dry grass brushing against dry grass melted into the lament of the ruthless wind. He yelled into the silence, and was given back the silence's scream, as soon as his own voice died out; he yelled no words, no song, nothing that could be understood by any but the empty moor and his own heart. His mind was blank and meaningless like the plain, only moved by the thoughtless blows of the wind. Tears poured down his cheeks, and a great grin of madness twisted his lips, and soon his cries came intertwined with bouts of irrepressible laughter: irrational elation and sudden fatigue rushing through his entire body as he came to realise that as long as he hid within Formenos' protective darkness, he would never, never have to sing again.   
  
Something forcefully clutched at his legs below the roof, but he was not afraid, and continued to holler out his exultation into the void, an absurd feeling of omnipotence in his heart as he writhed free from the music's hold; and Russandol pulled him back into the room with unexpected strength. A forceful hand was clasped over his mouth, muffling his cries, and an angry whisper hissed near his ear, "What in Mandos are you thinking? Eru knows we don't have need for another madman in this House!" But suddenly Russandol's iron-like hold was loosened, and he heard his brother let out a slight gasp, wondering what could have surprised him so.   
  
The eldest son of Feanor whipped a handkerchief out from somewhere about his person, a piece of blood-red cloth with golden letterings, and with the immediately most gentle of movements began to wipe his younger sibling's face; and when the latter twisted out of his grasp in astonishment he did not try to catch him again.   
  
"You're crying!" was all that he managed to utter, in quite an amusing strangled whisper when put in contrast with the completely off-thrown expression set in his handsome features.   
  
Maglor smiled through his free-flowing tears. "Seems like the heirloom of Feanor's blood cannot be denied, can it?"   
  
Starting up, he passed his shoulders out of the skylight again, and went on yelling into the silence before his brother could pull him back down; and this time his cries took on a shape, a meaning, a word; and the wind took it in its breast and closed upon it, again and again, until he choked upon his own tears and laughter:   
  
"Insane! Insane! I am insane!"   
  
And he could not stop laughing.   
  
  
  
  


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End file.
